The 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan
Migration, Material Landscapes, and the Making of Nations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.31805Keywords:
1947 Partition, Architectural Heritage, Evacuee Properties, Mass Displacement, Refugee ResettlementAbstract
The nation state, as a concept, relies on an assumption of boundedness—on the idea that governable units are culturally unified and locationally discrete. Displacement often works to make this boundedness a material reality. Demographics are reshuffled in accordance with essentialist understandings of cultural origins. Yet, displacement also exposes the impossibility of a national sovereignty based neatly on historic spatiality. Even if people are ‘going home’ to what is seen to be an ancestral homeland, they are leaving familiar landscapes shaped by their own personal pasts. In this paper, we discuss the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan as an example. We describe the yet contended uses and meanings of built landscapes associated with out-migrating Partition refugees on both sides of the border. Through this example, we assert that displacement is not a singular moment, but a long, drawn out negotiation of access and national belonging. Thus, archaeologies of forced and undocumented migration must not begin and end in discussion of hardship-filled border crossings and momentary homelessness. We must also consider the anxiety of post-journey existence within material landscapes that evidence the recent and long-standing occupations of others.
References
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Zamindar, V. F.-Y. 2007. The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories. New York: Columbia University Press.
Anderson, B. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso Books.
Bharadwaj, P., A. I. Khwaja and A. R. Mian. 2008. “The Partition of India: Demographic Consequences.” Available online: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1294846
Brass, P. R. 2003. “The Partition of India and Retributive Genocide in the Punjab, 1946-47: Means, Methods and Purposes.” Journal of Genocide Research 5 (1): 71–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520305657
Bryant, R. 2014. “History’s Remainders: On Time and Objects after Conflict in Cyprus.” American Ethnologist 41 (4): 681–697. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12105
Datta, V. N. 1986. “Punjab Refugees and the Urban Development of Greater Delhi.” In Delhi Through the Ages: Selected Essays in Urban History, Culture and Society, edited by R. E. Frykenberg, 287–306. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
D’Costa, B. 2011. Nationbuilding, Gender and War Crimes in South Asia. London and New York: Routledge.
De León, J. 2013. “Undocumented Migration, Use Wear, and the Materiality of Habitual Suffering in the Sonoran Desert.” Journal of Material Culture 18 (4): 321–345. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183513496489
Deol, H. 2000. Religion and Nationalism in India: The Case of the Punjab. London and New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203402269
Frykenberg, R. E., ed. 1986. Delhi Through the Ages: Selected Essays in Urban History, Culture and Society. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Grewal, J. S. 2004. “Historical Geography of the Punjab.” Journal of Punjab Studies 11 (1): 1–18.
Hamilakis, Y. 2007. The Nation and its Ruins: Antiquity, Archaeology, and National Imagination in Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
____. 2016. “Decolonial Archaeologies: From Ethnoarchaeology to Archaeological Ethnography.” World Archaeology. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2016.1209783
The Hindu. 2015. “683 Evacuee Properties Subject of Legal Strife.” 11 March. Available online: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/683-evacuee-properties-subject-of-legal-strife/article6980320.ece
Jagmohan. 2015. Triumphs and Tragedies of Ninth Delhi. New Delhi: Allied Publishers.
Kaviraj, S. 1994. “Crisis of the Nation-state in India.” Political Studies 42 (1): 115–129. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1994.tb00008.x
Kourelis, K. 2017. “The Archaeology of Refugee Crises in Greece: Diachronic Cultural Landscapes.” Paper Presented at the Society of Historical Archaeology Conference, Fort Worth, Texas, January.
Malik, H. 1969. “The Muslims of India and Pakistan.” Current History 56 (331): 151.
Mani, B. R. 1998. Delhi: Threshold of the Orient. New Delhi: Aryan Books International.
McGuire, R. H. 1992. “Archeology and the First Americans.” American Anthropologist 94 (4): 816–836. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1992.94.4.02a00030
Meskell, L., ed. 1998. Archaeology Under Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. London and New York: Routledge.
Press Trust of India. 2016. “Govt’s Move to Amend Enemy Property Act Faces Opposition from Four Parties.” Indian Express, 8 May. Available online: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/govts-move-to-amend-enemy-property-act-faces-opposition-from-four-parties/
Rajagopalan, M. 2011. “Postsecular Urbanisms: Situating Delhi within the Rhetorical Landscape of Hindutva.” In The Fundamentalist City? Religiosity and the Remaking of Urban Space, edited by N. AlSayyad and M. Massoumi, 257–282. London and New York: Routledge.
Raghavan, P. 2016. “Enemy Property: Why India Is Still Struggling with a Political Legacy of Partition.” Scroll.in., 16 January. Available online: http://scroll.in/article/801926/enemy-property-why-india-is-still-struggling-with-a-political-legacy-of-partition
Singh, Y. P. 2015. Islam in India and Pakistan: A Religious History. New Delhi: Vij Books.
Sharma, Y. D. 1964. Delhi and Its Neighbourhood: XXVI International Congress of Orientalists. New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India.
Talbot, I., and G. Singh. 2009. The Partition of India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Taneja, A. V. 2013. Nature, History, and the Sacred in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi. PhD diss., Columbia University.
Times News Network. 2016. “16,000 ‘Enemy Properties’ Worth Crores in India, Several in City.” The Times of India, 14 January. Available online: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/16000-enemy-properties-worth-crores-in-India-several-in-city/articleshow/50582909.cms
Von Glasenapp, H. 1999. Jainism: An Indian Religion of Salvation. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Zamindar, V. F.-Y. 2007. The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories. New York: Columbia University Press.
Published
2017-07-12
Issue
Section
Forum
How to Cite
Riggs, E., & Jat, Z. R. (2017). The 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan: Migration, Material Landscapes, and the Making of Nations. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, 3(2), 139-146. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.31805
